New experiences

 

I had prepared a topic I was going to talk about this week and then something that happened this week changed my mind.

The team I work in the cases I work on are generally on my case loads for a few months and then closed. There will always be outliers to that which are there a little longer but that has been my experience so far.

I have one person I have been working with for approximately 5 months and I went to visit them this week. This is the fourth time I have seen them due to hospitalisations and periods of time where we were seeing how everything was working before reviewing the situation.

The difficultly is that in that time this person is not the same anymore. When I first got involved, we were organising a move from their own home with a care package to an extra care scheme because they needed just a bit more than could be managed at home. They are now in a nursing home being nursed in bed and requiring 24-hour support.

I work in a team where we support a lot of older people so visiting people who are fully dependant and need a lot of support is nothing new for me. It’s seeing the change that is.

It is the trickiness of a situation where you know that the situation the person is currently in is the last thing, they would have wanted but you cannot do anything about it because their needs are so high now that they can’t be managed elsewhere. I didn’t realise how much I would struggle with that visit. I knew it was going to be difficult and I chatted through that beforehand, but the actual situation was much more difficult that I expected.

I knew that I would have to go and explain to this person what is happening because their dementia has got much worse, so they no longer have the memory or understanding of what is going on. She has enough awareness that she knew how it makes her feel and that was the difficult bit. I did not expect to be having a conversation with someone in their 80s about their wish to fall asleep and not wake up when I started my training.

To be honest when I started my training I didn’t expect to be working with older people, I always wanted to work with children and then situations in my personal life and positive experiences I had on placement changed that for me. I am glad that when I went into my placements that I took everything I could from them but also gave everything I have. I did not sit back and get by doing the bare minimum I took hold of every opportunity, and I am so glad I did because I feel that it has made me the well-rounded practitioner that I am.

I know that I don’t know everything no matter how long I have been somewhere but that is a bit part of Social Work. I have heard many times in courses and seminars how when you feel you know everything its time to leave the industry and the longer, I am in it the more I believe that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Language

I was recently reading a couple of blogs from Rewriting Social Care and found that it got me thinking about the use of language and whether this has improved over time. One word that is used often when referring to people who require support is the world vulnerable. What does that even mean? There are a lot of different ways of thinking about this word. Does it mean at risk, does it mean open emotionally, does it mean uneducated or lacking in skills. I don't know about you but I have definitely felt vulnerable in my life but I do not require Social Care support. The two things are not mutually exclusive but they seem to be intrinsically linked. I have felt vulnerable physically when having my daughter because you are in effect in a room full of strangers, not wearing very much, in pain and for me experiencing something I had never done before. Not only was I open emotionally, I was at risk physically and I did not really know what I was doing. I have felt emotionally vulnerab...
Read more

Hidden skills

  One of the most difficult things I have found since going back to work is the change to my working hours. I now work 3 days a week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Which is brilliant don't get me wrong but also it is one of the hardest things about going back. I get a 4 day weekend which is lovely but as I regularly remind people that does not mean I just get to chill. I have a 15 month old so I am in mum mode as soon as I finish work and everyday I am off. I solo parent 2 days a week so they are definitely busy. The tricky thing about the days I work is that Thursday to Tuesday is a long gap. If I am working with a family regarding a situation that needs sorting fairly quickly if I have not completed the work by the end of Thursday then it will be almost another week before I work on it again. They have the option to contact my team in my absence but that is not the best continuity for the family. I am lucky that I am in a role where I manage my own diary so that means I ca...
Read more

Importance of Communication

We talk a lot in Social Work about the importance of communication and generally we are talking about the communication between us and the people we work with. Those who are also involved in the care of the people we support such as families. The thing that I find most frustrating is that this doesn't always happen when it should the most. I had a visit booked this week and when I arrived I was told that they were waiting for an ambulance to take the person I was going to see to hospital to be checked out. I am glad that they were doing what needed to be done for the person but found myself frustrated that nobody thought to give me a call, let me know they weren't themselves or tell me the reason why because I had travelled a long way to get to this visit only to pretty much turn around and travel back. This is time that I could have used to provide support for someone else that ended up wasted due to the simple lack of a phone call. I know people are busy but I felt t...
Read more